The Army Needs Fake Cows And Goat Heads

Fake towns have a proud military tradition dating back to World War One, when the French military reconstructed parts of Paris in an effort to confuse German war zeppelins. Since then, ghost towns have emerged not just as bold military feints, but also as important training tools. All of which may explain why the Army needs foam goat heads.

The Mission & Installation Contracting Command based out of Fort Knox has put out a request for fake goats, fake goat heads, fake cows, fake eggs, fake ice cream, fake fruit vending stations, fake butcher's tables—you get the picture. The real equivalents of these items are fairly common, but the fake versions are a bit trickier. They've all got to be fire-resistant because chances are they're going to get shot at, bombed, and rained down upon with some sort of actual fire.

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Whatever they're building at Fort Knox, they'll have stiff competition for the best fake town in America. There's MCity out of the University of Michigan, which tests self-driving cars in a fake town layout. The FBI has long used Hogan's Alley, built with the help of Hollywood set designers, for training. The Secret Service has the 500-acre James J. Rowley Training Center.

In 2013, the Army actually built out a fake Afghani village called Ertebat Shar. Pictures of Ertebat show realistic scenes of markets, but are lack a single animal. It's impossible to say if the Army wants to simply improve on the Ertrebat recreation or build out a new fabrication entirely, but whatever it wants to do is an improvement: animals are a daily part of life in, say, Afghanistan. It's hard to imagine a realistic simulation without them.